PENSION REFORM. Emmanuel Macron should not derogate from the 65 years, as mentioned during his last campaign. Long careers, generation 1961… All about the contours of the reform.
[Mis à jour le 8 décembre 2022 à 14h58] After the statements ofElisabeth Borne last week about the pension reform, Emmanuel Macron received the headliners of the government on Wednesday evening at the Elysée. The latter was firm on the starting age, he should not derogate from the decline from 62 to 65 years. Also, this pension reform should go through an amending Social Security finance bill (PLFSSR). On Thursday, December 15, 2022, the Prime Minister will officially unveil the main lines of this long-awaited and disputed reform. Here is a summary of these latest announcements, outlining the outlines of the reform:
- Gradual postponement of the retirement age to 65 years
- First generation affected: 1961
- Consideration of long careers
- Minimum pension: €1,200
- No increase in age for cancellation of the discount: 67 years old
- Special diets : new recruits now affiliated to the general insurance scheme
- Implementation of the reform at thesummer 2023
With this pension reform project, several generations will have to work hard, and work long additional months to achieve a full pension. here is a simulator allowing you to know your new legal retirement age according to your year of birth, for the generations born from 1961. Note that from the 1970 generation, the legal retirement age will automatically be set at 65:
- 1961 : 62 years and 4 months
- 1962 : 62 years and 8 months
- 1963 : 63 years old
- 1964 : 63 years and 4 months
- 1965 : 63 years and 8 months
- 1966 : 64 years old
- 1967 : 64 years and 4 months
- 1968 : 64 years and 8 months
- 1969 : 65 years
On the sensitive file of the pension reform, already envisaged in 2017 but which could not be completed due to the health crisis, Emmanuel Macron seemed to let go of some ballast by explaining that the project could relate to a legal retirement age of 64. This possibility was ruled out on Thursday, December 1, during the interview withElisabeth Borne in the columns of the daily Le Parisien. The age shift will be progressive, but until 65 yearson the horizon 2031. Here are the main points of the pension reform envisaged by Emmanuel Macron:
- The system by division is kept
- the gradual postponement from the legal retirement age to 65 years with the addition of 4 months per year from 2023 and until 2031. A person born in 1961 could retire at the age of 62 and 4 months in 2023 or 2024 compared to 62 years for a person born in 1961 and expected to retire in 2023. The generation born in 1969 would retire at age 65.
- “The long careers” and the “reality of trades and tasks” would be taken into account, a way of recognizing hardship but via “individualized” factors.
- Minimum pension at full rate of 1,200 euros per month
- The summer jobs could no longer be taken into account in the calculation
- Removal of special diets for new agents of the RATP, Banque de France
- The creation of a “index of seniors” is envisaged in the interests of professional equality.
- The establishment of a “salary insurance” for retirees over the age of 55 who wish to continue working, and who find a job that pays less than the previous one.
The initial objective was to create a universal system, by points and by pay-as-you-go, thus eliminating special regimes (SNCF, electricity and gas industries, RATP, etc.). “All avenues are being studied, including the avenue that would lead us to propose a reform through the Social Security financing bill,” declared government spokesman Olivier Véran after the Council of Ministers of Wednesday September 14, 2022. As part of this pension reform, on Thursday September 15, the Pensions Orientation Council issued its annual report. Conclusion: the French pension system should experience a surplus of €3.2 billion in 2022 (0.1 point of GDP). The plan should be in deficit for several years, before a potential return to balance estimated between 2027 and 2030. Information should not fail to reignite the fuse between government and unions.
Tuesday, September 20, the Minister of Labor Olivier Dussopt, had set the tone. “If there is no support, we have tools in the Constitution,” he said at the microphone of RTL. The discussion with the social partners, the day before (Monday, September 19), had not seemed to ease the tensions. It also failed to move towards a consensus, hence the threats of certain unions such as the CFTC or the CGT to definitively close the discussion if the government were to pass by force on the subject of pension reform. During the debates, the Minister of Labor reaffirmed the government’s desire to implement a pension reform in the summer of 2023, therefore, fairly quickly. In view of the many dissonances, even within the majority, everything suggested that the implementation of the pension reform would last, which was not lacking. An expectation that could push the executive to act in haste by drawing the famous 49-3? Nothing is less sure.
The retirement of civil servants, which will remain different from that of the private system. The rules for calculating their basic pension should be maintained, confirmed Emmanuel Macron, as announced by the Minister of Transformation and the Public Service, Stanislas Guérini. It is still the salary received during the last six months of the professional career which will be taken into account. Conversely, in the private sector, it is the average salary received over the best twenty years that is taken into account.
New, however, in the words of Emmanuel Macron, Monday, October 26 on the set of France 2: to fight against medical deserts and judging “that we do not have enough doctors”, the President of the Republic indicated that he wanted to allow retired doctors to continue to work and thus “keep all the income that is theirs without paying new pension contributions”.
The pension reform should not structurally modify the current system. A mechanism for long careers will be retained, assured Emmanuel Macron on October 26 on the set of France 2. “We have to negotiate it. We must keep a mechanism where, of course, they will be asked to work a little longer, but define the right threshold”, he defended.
During an interview with Le Parisien, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne mentioned this problem of long careers. For those who started working early, the system could, in the future, allow them to leave two or four years before the legal retirement age. “The principle will be maintained and even relaxed for those who really started working very early,” she added.
It unleashed passions, aroused the anger of the social partners, including the unions initially favorable to the project. Suspended sine die, the pension reform has had many twists and turns. Linternaute.com invites you to review the chronology of this controversial social project in a few key dates:
- May to December 2018 : the High Commissioner for pension reform, Jean-Paul Delevoye is conducting consultations with the social partners and a citizen platform has been launched.
- July 18, 2019 : the High Commissioner submits his report on the pension reform to the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe.
- September 12, 2019 : speech by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe before the Economic and Social Council (Cese). It reveals the main principles of the reform, largely repeating the Delevoye report.
- September to December 2019 : new round of negotiations on the pension reform with the social partners. It relates in particular to the solidarity mechanisms, the age and duration of contributions, the future balance of the pension system and the method of governance. A new citizen platform is open, and information meetings are held throughout the territory.
- December 5, 2019 : the social conflict begins. Many professions such as lawyers, opposed to pension reform, are taking to the streets.
- January 24, 2020 : presentation of the pension reform in the Council of Ministers, consisting of an ordinary law text and an organic law text. The Council of State gives a particularly critical opinion on the bill, and in particular on the impact study, made up of a thousand pages. The social partners and the executive are struggling on the thorny issue of the pivotal age. The government promises to launch a conference on the financing of the pension system in April.
- February 2020: pension reform is studied in the National Assembly, first in the social affairs committee, then in plenary session. The oppositions multiply the amendments to block the legislative process.
- Early March 2020 : the bill is adopted thanks to 49.3.
- Mid-March 2020 : the President of the Republic announces the suspension of major reforms, in the context of a health emergency.
- Summer 2020: newly appointed Jean Castex indicates the pension reform will be maintained. He calls for a new inventory of the finances of the pension system.
- October and November 2020 : The COR publishes a progress note, as well as its annual report, reporting on a widened deficit due to the crisis.
- June 2021: the COR publishes a report on the deficit created by the crisis, standing at 13 billion euros.
- July 6, 2021 : social summit at the Elysée
- November 10, 2021: the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, renounces to put in place a pension reform by the end of his mandate.
- December 15, 2021: During a program on TF1 “Where is France going?”, Emmanuel Macron talks about his vision of the reforms to come, including the need for a reform of the pension system. He now evokes the possibility of a system with “three regimes” and an extension of working hours to qualify for retirement.
- March 2022: Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform project has been abandoned, but remains one of the main campaign themes and a fundamental issue of the 2022 presidential election.
- April 2022 : Emmanuel Macron is in favor of raising the legal retirement age to 65 gradually. That is a decline of 4 months per year until 2032.
- June 2022 : Emmanuel Macron and Together! lose the absolute majority in the National Assembly during the legislative elections. The majority will have to form alliances with certain parties such as the MoDem or Horizons. What about raising the legal retirement age to 65?
- September 2022 : Olivier Dussopt, Minister of Labor receives employers and unions to reach an agreement on pension reform after the publication of the annual report of the Pensions Orientation Council.
- December 15, 2022 : Presentation of the pension reform by Elisabeth Borne